


Blanc mange

by Winterflower



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hannibal teaches Will how to cook, M/M, dessert and lust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 23:25:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterflower/pseuds/Winterflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Would you like to help me finish this dessert, Will?”<br/>Will nods and moves closer.  Hannibal’s lips curl into a smirk, just a for a brief second. After all, blanc mange  is  a dish that requires patience. And a good deal of slow stirring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blanc mange

**Author's Note:**

> All historical details are invented and not based on fact.  
> But I did check the recipe for blanc mange, although I couldn't fully incorporate it into  
> the text.  
> Thank you for reading. All errors are my own.

Every symphony begins with a slight adjustment of the atmosphere ( _He dims the lights of the kitchen to a pleasant dusky glow),_ a shuffling of sheet music, a few notes on a harp ( _He opens the tap and feels the lukewarm water on his fingers)_ , and finally the entrance of the conductor ( _Hannibal takes out a clean white apron,  ties it around his waist, and rolls up his sleeves)._

From the cupboard above the countertop, he retrieves a bowl full of sweet almonds and inhales the musky smell of earth, maybe Christmas. _And Dominique. He thought that ghost no longer haunted his mind._ Somewhere in the back of his mind the skilled fingers of a young woman touch the ivory keys of a piano.  Dead they had looked even more fragile. He drops the almonds into boiling water and sets the timer for 2 minutes.

\-----------------------

_Sorbonne, Paris, 1952_

“Amygdala (Greek for almond), located within the medial temporal lobe, is involved in eliciting emotional response”, he read from his undergraduate anatomy textbook, an overbearing _L_ _e_ _dictionnaire_ _de l'anatomie_ _et de la physiologie_ by Gaston Millevieux. He leaned to examine the dissected brain lying on the lab bench. That was when he first saw her.

Red hair, pale skin, like blood from a fresh kill spilling on snow.

Her name was Dominique and she was the only female student at the Department of Medicine at Sorbonne. Her long fingers worked with a scalpel like a sculptor with clay; every movement had a deliberate precision, a poet’s consideration. The sight of her tender hands slicing flesh electrified him.   

He loved the way the line of the wrist curved; some delicate forgotten Rodin sculpture. The way the fingers sometimes melted into her red hair like snow into fire.

He also knew at that moment that he had to kill her.

\---------------------

He pours the water away, drains the almonds and skins them. Piled on a white china plate, they look like an odd assortment of ivory skulls. Without dropping a single almond, he pushes them into the mortar. But before the pestle descends, he hears the chime of the doorbell.

At the back of his mind, Hannibal had been expecting him.

The doorbell rings again, hesitantly. Like a child pushing open the door to a forbidden room. Hannibal wipes his fingers on a kitchen towel and walks to open the door.

“Will, please come in.”

Will, the scruffy, disheveled man, is standing before him. Shoulders slumped, he is apologizing before he even opens his mouth. Against the backdrop of the dark night and its menacing aural landscape of police sirens, traffic and restlessness, he looks even more faded. The weeks after Nicolas Boyle’s discovery have taken a toll. Hannibal suspects the truth is eating away at him, the bitter acid of knowledge burning through his affection for Abigail.  A few snowflakes cling to his lashes, and despite his composure Hannibal cannot help but find that detail slightly erotic. When he steps in, for a brief moment- _just a moment, but Hannibal is sure it happened-_ his arm brushes Hannibal’s chest, and he feels it.

\-----------------

_Sorbonne, Paris, 1952_

He felt it. The devil’s desire. When he ran his fingers through that heavenly fire around her head.

There had been glances, and innocent brushes.

‘ ‘annibal’, she whispered into his ear one day after pathology and nipped his earbud.  “Meet me behind the watch tower on the Rue de Capucines.

He smelled a virginal fear and lust, all mixed with the scent of vanilla and almonds that clung to her. His fingers brushed her collarbone, and she bit her lip. He could only restrain himself for a brief minute, before he bit her lower lip.

 _“Quelqu’un va nous voir,”_ she mouthed in between his kisses.

 He didn’t care.

\-----------------------

Will follows Hannibal through the atrium into the kitchen. Humming silently, Hannibal opens the fridge, uncorks a bottle of Sauvignon and pours a glass for Will.

“Please.”

Will accepts the glass with a nod. He is in his less talkative mood, brooding face, silent blue eyes. It makes him vulnerable and desirable all at once. A peculiar feeling rushes through Hannibal’s nervous system as he surveys those eyes that carry all the sadness of the world with such stoic suffering. He realizes that his desire for the man is something more than mere platonic friendship.

“It smells like _blanc mange_ in here,” Will says as Hannibal begins to pound the almonds with the pestle. “My mother used to make it for me.” He falls silent and stares at the translucent red of the Sauvignon.

A funny coincidence that this dessert is tied to a particular place in both their memories.

“Someone special once made this desert for me too,” Hannibal replies and crushes some gelatin leaves into heated milk. The scent-scape of the room is like a half remembered dream, soft whispered words, the heat of skin touching skin.

\---------------------

_Paris, 1952_

Dominique’s skin smelled of anticipation, a heavy humid atmosphere that is on the brink of lightning. When he came to her apartment, she took his hand stealthily and led him into the kitchen. Embraced him, forced his mouth open with her tongue. He responded, brushing his hand on her breasts, but his mind was elsewhere, indulging in the smell of almonds, sugar and milk. It was a crescendo of an aria. His cock stirred in his trousers.

Dominique brushed the front of his trousers, teasing ever so slightly and walked to the counter.

 _“_ _J'ai fait_ _ce plat_ _pour toi._ I made this for you. “ She brought the pudding closer and he stared at the milky white surface of the _blanc mange_ and then at Dominique’s finger as it penetrated the almond pudding. A phallic metaphor. He felt electricity in his body. She brought the finger to her mouth. It disappeared between her lips, an invitation, perhaps. A little bit of _blanc mange_ clung to the side of her mouth.

This road had never been travelled, and yet he did not spare a thought. His fingers wrapped in her hair, he drew her to him with a beastly violence, licked the blanc mange from her lips and ripped her chemise. She stood in front of him naked, the blanc mange had spilled on her breasts.

There is no one he desired as much as her.

\---------------------

“Someone special?” Will asks.

“Yes.”

Will’s silence is another question. But it is not the moment to share his memory of Dominque.

“From a different time, a different life,” he adds, and quickly steers the subject away from the cold dead hands he recalls as if it had happened yesterday.

“You must forgive me, I never asked what brought you here at this hour.”

“Nicolas Boyle.”

_Ah, that little snag._

Hannibal strains the crushed almonds through a cheese cloth.

“You did the right thing.”

“Then why do I feel so guilty?” The _why_  is nearly spat out. Hate and fear. And loathing.

Hannibal stirs the milk and the gelatin leaves and pours the almond paste into the mixture.

“I had a patient a long time ago, a man in his late seventies. At the end of his life, some troubling memories had begun claiming his mind.”

He scrapes the remaining paste and gently lets the milk dissolve it from the spatula.

“He had fought in the Battle of the Somme in his youth, he told me in one of our sessions. One day, his friend since boyhood, was hit by a shell in the face, blinded, but not killed. The battalion commander ordered the wounded to be left behind. Rather than leave his friend, the man shot him.”

Will swallows.

Hannibal refills Will’s glass.

“The guilt was slowly chocking him.”

Will’s hand trembles slightly. Hannibal-intentionally- brushes his shoulder as he moves past him to retrieve a bowl for the blanc mange.

\-------------

_Sorbonne, Paris , 1952_

He smelled the coppery fear, tasted the virginal red tainting the sheets. Her body was limp, the love leaking out of her, but she was still alive. Her cold fingers brushed his lips, her voice trembled slightly. The blood was painting the sheets, the blooming of an evil flower. _J’ai toujours su,_ she said. _I have always  know_.

\-------------------

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him that sometimes the purpose justifies the action. The right compensates for the wrong.”

 Will frowns. Hannibal motions him to come closer.

“Would you like to help me finish this dessert, Will?” Will nods and moves closer.  Hannibal’s lips curl into a smirk, just a for a brief second. After all, _blanc mange_  is  a dish that requires patience. _And a good deal of slow stirring._  


End file.
